Roberts to get shot at GOP redemption with race cases

BLOOMBERG NEWS

July 5, 2012Updated: July 5, 2012 10:04pm

Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais

FILE - In this Oct. 8, 2010 file photo, Chief Justice John Roberts is seen during the group portrait at the Supreme Court Building in Washington. Breaking with the court's other conservative justices, Roberts announced the judgment that allows the law to go forward with its aim of covering more than 30 million uninsured Americans. Roberts explained at length the court's view of the mandate as a valid exercise of Congress' authority to "lay and collect taxes." The administration estimates that roughly 4 million people will pay the penalty rather than buy insurance. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 8, 2010 file photo, Chief Justice John Roberts...

WASHINGTON - Chief Justice John Roberts, whose deciding vote upheld President Barack Obama's health care law, won't have to wait long for a chance to reassert his conservative credentials.

In the nine-month term that starts in October, the Supreme Court will consider rolling back university affirmative action and may take up same-sex marriage and the Voting Rights Act, the 1965 law that protects minorities at the polling place.

On the race issues in particular, Roberts is a good bet to rejoin the wing of the court that has been his ideological home since he became chief justice in 2005. He has taken a leading role on such questions, pushing for a color-blind Constitution.

"With respect to race, I don't think Chief Justice Roberts will have the same hesitation to advance a conservative agenda," said Kermit Roosevelt, a constitutional law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia.

More Information

Romney cool to Justice Roberts

Mitt Romney criticized Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday, stating that Roberts reached a conclusion that was inappropriate and "took a departure" from sound reasoning. Before the health care ruling, Romney had praised Roberts. But Romney displayed a cooler attitude toward Roberts in his interview with CBS News' Jan Crawford on Wednesday.

Roberts' critics

Opponents of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act criticized Roberts for joining with the court's four Democratic appointees to uphold the health care law. Roberts, 57, was accused of "arrogance" by columnist Michael Gerson and "judicial betrayal" by economist Thomas Sowell. The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial that he "behaved like a politician."

The criticism escalated after CBS News, citing two unnamed people, said Roberts originally voted to strike down the part of the law that requires Americans to get insurance - an idea once championed by the Heritage Foundation and leading Republicans - then switched sides during the court's internal deliberations.

That led to speculation among some Republicans that the chief justice had buckled under pressure from supporters of the law, which is intended to expand coverage to at least 30 million uninsured Americans.

Some commentators, including Charles Krauthammer and George Will, praised Roberts for parts of his opinion.

The ruling has left some legal conservatives questioning Roberts' reliability on other issues. The decision came days after he joined a 5-3 majority to strike down most of an Arizona law designed to crack down on illegal immigrants.

Hard to predict

"If the political winds pick up to a certain high-storm level, his views on the law or on the constitutionality seem to get second billing," said John Eastman, a constitutional law professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif. After health care, "it's hard to predict where he comes down on any given case."

Roberts didn't respond to a request for comment.

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The justices also will consider shielding multinational companies, including Royal Dutch Shell, from lawsuits accusing them of complicity in human-rights abuses. They'll determine whether the Alien Tort Statute, a 223-year-old law, can be invoked for wrongdoing that occurs beyond U.S. borders.

Nowhere has Roberts been steadier than on issues of race. He has consistently allied with other Republican-appointed members - Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito - leaving Justice Anthony Kennedy, another Republican appointee, to determine how far the nine-member court will go in curbing racial preferences by the government.

Race rulings

In the affirmative action case, the court may scale back, or even overturn, past rulings that say universities can consider the race of their applicants to help ensure campus diversity. The justices are considering an appeal from Abigail Noel Fisher, a white student who was rejected when she applied to the University of Texas' flagship Austin campus.

For Roberts, the decision may be straightforward. In a 2007 case involving school integration at the kindergarten-to-grade-12 level, he made clear he had no use for racial preferences in education.

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," he wrote.